Rodney King
- This is a past program
Copresented with the UCLA Department of History and the UCLA Interdepartmental Program in Afro-American Studies
Roger Guenveur Smith's Bessie Award-winning solo performance is inspired by the late Rodney King, whose videotaped beating by LAPD officers ignited the 1992 Los Angeles uprising. Twenty-five years after the uprising, Smith reunites with director Spike Lee for their ninth collaboration in a remarkable body of work that includes the Peabody Award-winning A Huey P. Newton Story and the Oscar-nominated Do the Right Thing. Filmed in one take, with multiple cameras, in front of a live audience, Rodney King navigates the tragic odyssey of the man Smith calls "the first reality TV star." (2017, dir. Spike Lee, 60 min.)
Followed by a Q&A with Roger Guenveur Smith and UC Santa Barbara Professor Stephanie Batiste. Unfortunately Spike Lee will not be attending.
The screening and discussion is followed by a reception with the artists in the Hammer's courtyard, featuring the a live DJ set by the film's composer Marc Anthony Thompson (aka Chocolate Genius).
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Roger Guenever Smith in Rodney KingPhoto: Patti McGuire
All Hammer public programs are free and made possible by a major gift from an anonymous donor.
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